Hand-Embroidered Kitchen Towels

We received some lovely handmade items for our wedding. I'll post a few to share the craftiness! These towels were embroidered by our good friend Jess. She took inspiration from our registry, so many of the items on the towels are also in our kitchen. Jess also authors this delicious food blog.

Elephant series

Off to a baby girl shower this weekend. Needed onesie.

Baby Monster Onesie

I bought a book called Sukie Iron-Ons, which looked cool, but my first iron-on attempt failed to yield a satisfactory result. Instead of wasting the bad onesie, I gave it some felt baby monsters instead.

Whale Onesie

Pattern inspired from the Japanese embroidery book (book purchase inspired by Sharon). I've finally added a onesie tag because, well, we keep making them. As Elana says, "When friends reproduce, I produce. Baby onesies."

Whale Tee

The felted swatches continue...

(He's kind of swimming off to one side, no?)

This one I had to hand-sew because I wasn't getting the tension right on the sewing machine (novice, here). But sewing by hand offered some nice precision.

Sour Lemon and Ecstatic Tomato Baby Onesies

Hello craftamaniacs! I am here to counter sauron's (sharon's) growing empire of high quality crafts and clever (and informative) descriptions that are expanding over this site.

I embroidered two baby onesies using some iron-on patterns Ellen sent me last year in my holiday card as a gift for a colleague. The company that makes these transfers is Sublime Stitching. One of the most important things to remember when doing transfer patterns like this is that it is important to have your iron on high heat, but NO steam.

Next stop is a super cute rag doll pattern Sharon sent me. But before that - Kazakhstan....

Felted Swatch Nation

Debbie Stoller's Stitch 'N Bitch Nation has rad sweater pattern that includes cutting felted swatches to make a flower and sewing them onto a sweater. I first tried this on a knitted skirt and now I want to sew felted swatches onto EVERYTHING. I am a sewing novice and this was my first time using the zigzag stitch on the sewing machine. If I were to do such a detailed shape again I would probably sew it by hand. The key is to use "stitch n tear" (tear-away stabilizer) behind the fabric onto which you're sewing the swatch. I embroidered the froggie features. Little dude is a bit uneven, but I like to think he looks rumpled and cute. Watch for an even cuter (hopefully) felted whale Tshirt!